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The Double Standard Applied by the Covid Inquiry When Taking Evidence from John Edmunds and Carl Heneghan Yesterday Reveals its Bias

by Kieran Saxon
20 October 2023 3:00 PM

The contrast between the evidence sessions of Prof. John Edmunds (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, SAGE modeller) and Prof. Carl Heneghan at the Covid Inquiry yesterday was absolutely shocking and raises huge questions about the professionalism of the Inquiry.

The King’s Counsel in the morning spent hours questioning Edmunds in a friendly, at times obsequious manner, as he explained how misunderstood the modelling was, how it wasn’t needed to justify lockdowns – as the indicative Basic reproduction number (R0) and Indicative Fatality Rate (IFR) were enough – to justify earlier and harder lockdown measures. Yet, according to Edmunds, the modelling would still be needed in the future. Truly an “all things to all men modelling” – useful when needed to justify future lockdowns, yet hides in the corner when retrospectively scrutinised and compared with real-world data. Three key flaws in the Covid modelling have been highlighted:

  1. Over-estimation of the effect of mandatory NPIs versus under-estimation of the effect of voluntary NPIs.
  2. Over-estimation of ICU per hospitalised rates, where the Imperial College team doubled the rate of hospitalised patients going into ICU to 30% based on flawed data from China.
  3. Failure to take into account the impact of prior and innate immunity in the population, especially children and the asymptomatic.

These aren’t flaws that can be explained away by saying the scenarios changed with the reality of lockdowns. For example, ICU rates are unaffected by shelter-in-place orders and school closures.

The dangerous implication here is that the Covid Inquiry is lining us up for future restrictions based on indicative RO and IFR, a lockdown hair-trigger switch that gives more authority to the modellers.

The soft-ball questioning and praise from the Inquiry continued as the discussion moved to Summer 2020, circuit breakers and the elision from “flatten the curve” to “zero Covid”.

Then the Inquiry moved on to the Downing Street Summit, where other voices – counsel highlighting as the ‘let it rip’ brigade – were invited at short notice. The big reveal was that Angela McLean, who has replaced Sir Patrick Vallance as Chief Scientific Officer, referred to Carl Heneghan as a “f*ckwit” in a contemporaneous WhatsApp chat, while Edmunds challenged Heneghan’s epidemiological knowledge. In my view, the Inquiry raising the point in this way is indicative of a lack of professionalism.

The Inquiry was also keen to include another pet villain – Doctor Death – the sobriquet applied by McLean to refer to Rishi Sunak, for the perceived crime of pushing for Eat Out to Help Out to reinvigorate the pub and restaurant industry, and providing a much needed morale boost to the nation.

The questioning continued for hours, covering the narrative classics of Long Covid, why the Vaccine rollout should have been broader, etc., all carried out in a cosy relationship included Baroness Hallett’s freely-given praise for Edmund, Ferguson and the whole modelling team.

By contrast, the interrogation of Carl Heneghan started out with a blatant attempt to undermine his credentials, strongly re-buffed by Carl, setting a tone for the only adversarial evidence session I have seen at this Inquiry so far. Any discussion that strayed from the narrative was met with aggressive and hostile demands for ‘yes/no’ answers.

Counsel objected to Carl’s answer rightly pointing out the danger of lockdowns to care homes, as he wanted to concentrate on focused protection and the misrepresentation of it by Counsel as hermetically sealing up the old and vulnerable. The minimum of critical thinking could have told Counsel that it was about reducing risk where it was highest, rather than across the board.

Carl was challenged on his views on the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – he broadly agreed with it, he explained, but didn’t sign at the time as he needed more evidence on the details as you would expect, before Counsel dived into the Downing Street conference call.

Carl was challenged on his definition of ‘Endemicity’ on that call (presumably Edmunds’ gotcha epidemiological point), with Counsel demanding that the spread of infection be “broad and predictable” for it to qualify as endemic, when seasonal spikes shown on a graph means it wasn’t. This was rebuffed in a strong response from Prof. Heneghan, emphasising the seasonal pattern of endemic respiratory viruses and the variability of testing data and evidence on the ground.

Carl’s response to being challenged on the “f*ckwit” comment was dignified and professional, indicating it signified a lack of professionalism from the author as well as a lack of willingness to engage in debate, and an assumption of certainty where there was great uncertainty. He further pointed out that the entire lockdown response was driven by modelling and failed to take into account empirical data or the reality on the ground. Counsel scuttled along to that favourite fallback of the lockdown zealots – Long Covid – where Carl educated the Inquiry by telling it there was no greater risk of lingering disease from Covid than from any other seasonal respiratory disease.

At this point, Counsel decided to end the very short proceedings, presumably to shield the carefully constructed narrative to live another day.

It was hard not to notice the stark contrast in the attitude and approach to the two witnesses and it raises further serious questions on the ability of this long and expensive public inquiry to professionally and impartially challenge the decision making that led to lockdowns.

Kieran Saxon is a member of UsForThem.

Tags: Carl HeneghanHallett InquiryJohn EdmundsLong CovidModelling

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69 Comments
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Grim Ace
Grim Ace
2 months ago

That’s all well and good. But Hermer is a traitor to the safety and security of our native people. He places the interests of immigrants and terrorists – who have murdered and injured our people, over us. His name will go on a list of those who must be tried and sentenced for their treason against us.

Last edited 2 months ago by Grim Ace
12
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 months ago

Too highbrow for me, I am afraid.
My observation is that powerful people change laws to suit themselves just until more powerful people come along and change them again.
Lawyers are simply interpreters of the law of the day, whatever they would like to think.

4
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
2 months ago
Reply to  For a fist full of roubles

This is what people like him, who make up the traitor class, are supportive of. Quite shameful and concerning, in my opinion. All due to ‘multiculti’, of course, and supports the data from Matt Goodwin. Fair play to Alex Armstrong for highlighting this;

”72 schools across England have no white British kids. 454 schools have less than 2%”

https://x.com/HoodedClaw1974/status/1931630733753241969

2
0
harrydaly
harrydaly
2 months ago
Reply to  For a fist full of roubles

If the highbrow is to be like this, let’s have more of it.

0
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
2 months ago

Lucy Connolly’s fundraiser has reached its goal, and will surely keep on growing. A big ”Fk You!” to the government and judiciary;

”You probably know of Lucy Connolly as the “Tory councillor’s racist wife” who posted a horrible tweet on the day of the Southport massacre in July last year. A bereaved mother herself, Lucy was horrified by the murder of three little girls at a holiday club and expressed her distress on social media. When she’d calmed down, a few hours later, Lucy deleted the tweet. It did not represent who she was as a person, as a wife to Ray, a loving mother to a twelve-year-old daughter, as a devoted and hugely popular childminder to small children of many different nationalities.
Lucy Connolly has paid a high price for a moment of anger. An unimaginably terrible price. Sir Keir Starmer threatened there would be heavy punishments for anyone arrested in connection with the Southport riots. He called them “far right thugs”. Lucy was arrested, she was denied bail to which she was entitled as a person of previously exemplary character and taken to prison. She was petrified. Lucy was advised by her solicitor to plead guilty because she’d be “out by Christmas”.”

https://democracythree.org/helplucyconnolly

But what of the others that were jailed for similar? Does Wayne O’Rourke have a fundraiser to help him rebuild his life? Are we even familiar with any of the other people’s names, and do we know how they’re bearing up, or have they vanished from our consciences due to lack of interest/exposure, even by so-called ‘citizen journalists’?

”Many may not be aware but…

When certain Southport protestors were held on remand last year, some were given reeducation courses on “diversity”.

This is what happened to Daffron Williams (pictured), an Afghanistan and Iraq veteran suffering from PTSD, while he was at HMP Swansea.

His crime? Social media posts.

One post said: “Civil war is here. The only thing that’s missing is bullets. That’s the next step.”

Another: “I am racist as f***, only to those who sap the life out of society and disrespect culture. Our future as British is so uncertain it is unreal.”

Another post included an AI image one of a child dressed as a medieval knight carrying sword next to lion. The caption read, “Time to wake up the lion to save our children’s future”.

He was sentenced to 2 years in prison after pleading guilty to stirring up racial hatred.

Just sent an FOI request over to HMPPS and the MoJ to see exactly what this “diversity” module at HMP Swansea entailed…

Could be interesting.

Williams should be released fairly soon as half his sentence is to be served on license.”

https://x.com/StarkNakedBrief/status/1931013502962926024

Last edited 2 months ago by Mogwai
5
0
Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
2 months ago

Three long time friends with serious Communist links are Sir Kneel , Lord Herbert & hate not hopes Nick Lowles , these people are hell bent on crushing the life out of the uk ! Three Enemies of the State walking amongst us !!….

6
0
RW
RW
2 months ago

Hermer is either a liar or an idiot as what he refers to as post war consensus was a violent reorderding of the world by military force with huge civilians casualties as perfectly intended side effect (and sometimes, not-so-side-effect) and the only thing which got rebuit by it was the failed league of nations, an unprecedented idea of a certain US president from second decade of the 20th century meant to guarantee “eternal world peace”. Neither the original nor the copy ever came close to achieving that.

1
0
JXB
JXB
2 months ago

There is no such thing as “international law” – just national sovereignty and the law is the people. Called Common Law – which is discovered law not invented rules by a bunch of self-serving galoots.

3
0
Curio
Curio
2 months ago

Spectator: “Yet this week the clock seemed to have been turned back to around ad 650. Hamit Coskun was convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence motivated ‘by hostility towards followers of Islam’. His crime? Setting fire to a Quran, shouting ‘fuck Islam’ and declaring the faith a ‘religion of terrorism’ outside the Turkish consulate.”
I wonder whether the Professor has any comments to make about this case in particular, and in general, on democracy in Turkey, Turkey’s islamisation and Erdogan‘s condemnation of Israel and backing of Hamas after the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.

2
0
Keith C
Keith C
2 months ago

“Kemi Badenoch said Lord Hermer “is calling people who disagree with him Nazis”. No, he wasn’t. He didn’t mention Nazis once.”
This strikes me as rather obtuse. Hermer would not have mentioned Schmitt at all had he not been a Nazi speaking at a time of Nazism.

0
0
Gezza England
Gezza England
2 months ago

When it comes to it being a lawyer is probably considered worse than a serial killer as at least you can trust what they will do.

0
0

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